


lycanthropy

by waitfornight



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Mild Sexual Content, Werewolf Charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3828841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitfornight/pseuds/waitfornight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Come back, Charles.</i>
</p><p>It’s a beloved voice that whispers in the spaces between what’s left of his human consciousness and the wild and fraying, thornier parts of his mind. He tips his muzzle into the wind to scent the air, smelling the rain and old rot of trees and damp, rich earth. Farther out, much farther, in the village set deep in the valley hidden away by green hills he catches the scent of smoke and sooty ash of a fire that’s been burning on through the night in the hope of keeping him at bay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lycanthropy

**Author's Note:**

> Short werewolf au half inspired by all the Little Red Riding Hood cherik fan art on tumblr.

_Come back, Charles._

It’s a beloved voice that whispers in the spaces between what’s left of his human consciousness and the wild and fraying, thornier parts of his mind. He tips his muzzle into the wind to scent the air, smelling the rain and old rot of trees and damp, rich earth. Farther out, much farther, in the village set deep in the valley hidden away by green hills he catches the scent of smoke and sooty ash of a fire that’s been burning on through the night in the hope of keeping him at bay.

The leaves rustle under the caress of the wind as he weaves in and out of maple and alder wood, loping dangerously closer and closer to civilization, ignoring the voice inside his head urging him to return, to give up the night. Saliva drips from the corner of his mouth as his senses seize on traces of smoked fish and the soft cooing sounds of a mother tucking her children into bed and shuttering their window against the shadows. The beastlier, ghastlier part of him, the part of him that’s been left untethered by humanity and reason has learned from others far more pitiless than himself that there is nothing quite as delicious as the soft and tender flesh of a child.

_Charles…_

The voice grazes gentle through his mind once more, though for all its gentleness it’s taken on a firmer, more ardent edge. He turns his head away before the grisly thought can run ahead any further, loosening himself from the grip of the feverish and devilish demands that have plagued him ever since the curse took hold. Willing his strong, slender legs to carry him back through the trees and across empty fields, racing faster and faster toward his home. Only sparing the slightest of interests to the scattered entrails of the deer he’d killed in a frenzied fit when it had sprang away from him in fear at his first passing as he veers back into the trees.

He’s nearing the edge of the woods now, close to the dwelling of the sole occupant who still dares to remain after so many others have fled, forsaking their homes and escaping to their neighbors in the valley, leaving Charles the lord of a lonely and abandoned place after he’d ravaged the entire village’s livestock during his first lunar cycle.

He smells and hears Logan long before he sees him, coming upon him toiling away in the predawn hours with the night still gripping the land. If Charles were able to smile he would do so now with wretched glee. Logan’s back is turned to him, a lantern burning strong and bright at his feet as he sets down his axe to lift his newly felled bundle of kindling wood.

It’s a delightful game they play, Charles thinks as he crouches low to the ground and creeps closer. Stilling just out of sight as Logan suddenly drops his armful of logs without a word, taking up the lantern as he whirls around to face Charles’ direction. The lantern swings back and forth, its light reaching out for Charles but Charles has melted far enough back into the dark that the light has no hope of reaching him.

Even if Logan cannot see him he can still smell and sense his presence, his eyes peering close and shrewd between the trees, seeking Charles out.

“I know you’re there,” Logan growls, sounding every bit as animalistic as Charles feels.

Charles bares his teeth in answer, his ears laying back as his hackles raise but that voice is calling to him again, more urgent, more insistent, if not still gentle, and so he gives one last sniff, one ear twitching at Logan’s muttered command of ‘ _away with you now’_ as he slowly turns to race his own shadow home.

Erik is on his knees behind their home when Charles pushes his way through bramble vines and scraggly weeds, staring fondly at Charles across the empty space between them, settled among meadowsweet and larkspur. Charles is panting and overheated from his run through fields and woods but he bares his teeth again as he nears, the animal in him surging to the surface at the sight of Erik in such a vulnerable position, urging him to bite. He shoves the desire away quickly enough, his keen ears picking up the sound of Erik's heartbeat, steady and slow and headier to Charles than any wine.

Erik doesn’t flinch from him even as Charles lowers his far larger head leaving them eyelevel with each other. Erik raises his hand, stroking the back of it soothingly along Charles’ muzzle, trusting Charles not to sink his sharp, sharp teeth through flesh and sinew and crunch the bone.

Erik’s hand continues its travels over his head and finally comes to rest behind one of Charles’ ears, a grin splitting his face as he starts to scratch and Charles tips his head more fully into the contact.

“I was worried about you,” Erik murmurs to him quietly and Charles blinks his large eyes and lunges forward with unnerving speed to lick at Erik’s face.

***

Erik the Red had come to the village of Westchester five winters ago, named so for his auburn hair and the ridiculous cloak he’d sported into town at his first arrival. He’d taken up his trade as the local silversmith soon after, failing miserably to hide his longing and adoring glances for the tousle-haired and blue eyed school teacher. And even if he had it would have made no difference. His thoughts announced their desires and intentions well enough whenever Charles found a reason to get close, which was often enough to make himself every bit as obvious. Until one day Charles inadvertently caught Erik in the act of using his powers, lifting wrought iron from out of the forge without a touch. Erik recoiled at first, fearing his reaction for a brief and flickering moment before Charles had hushed him with a soothing caress across his mind.

They began seeing each other in secret after that, hiding their burgeoning love from prying eyes and suspicious rumors whispered behind hands. Charles accompanied Erik night after night to Erik’s lonely home on the outskirts of the village, wonderment coursing through him as Erik gave himself up again and again to Charles’ deft hands and skilled mouth.

In the late winter months however, Charles’ mother had fallen gravely ill and required Charles’ presence back in England to settle her affairs. On the night before Charles left Erik laved him with kiss upon kiss and finally whispered the words in Charles’ ear his heart and mind had been screaming for weeks.

Charles was bitten on the foggy and rain-soaked cobbled backstreets of London late one night while stumbling home from a tavern after drowning his grief at his mother’s passing. He gained a terrible wound from the affair that required stitching along with memories of something he could scarcely recall in his daylight hours but were clear enough in his nightmares. On the ship sailing back to New York he’d fallen ill himself and found himself with the sickening and sudden urge to tear out the captain’s throat when the other had enquired as to what the matter was. He shut himself up in his quarters after that, curling up on his single bed, sweating and quaking with a fever that refused to break.

Erik met him as he promised on the boarding docks, a deep frown marring his face at the sight of Charles’ disheveled and wrung out state. Taking Charles home with him and caring for him as best he could. Finally sending for the doctor despite Charles’ protests when it became clear that Charles wasn’t getting any better.

The doctor sent word to Charles’ sister in England that Charles immediately thwarted by following up with a letter of his own assuring Raven there was no need to leave the countryside on his account and that all was well, truly it was, he was doing much better at long last.

The next night his slight, compact human body was overcome by a monster and in the onslaught he devoured Constable Shaw’s entire flock of sheep.

Afterwards under the morning sun he woke to Erik’s hesitant touch, naked and curled on his side at the edge of a field, nestled down in flowering lily of the valley, his senses reeling, the metallic and bitter taste of blood still lingering in his mouth.

That night they leafed together through old and dusty tomes filled with less than wholesome things and stories of the occult before coming upon lycanthropy and the yellowed and faded drawing of a werewolf.

At Charles’ request, amidst his fear, Erik fashioned him a cage from forged iron, heavier than any bear cage and twice as strong. Charles raged at Erik, who studied him curiously on the safe side of the bars, using his powers to fortify the cage each time Charles came just a little too close to prying his way to freedom. Watching as Charles snarled and snapped at him, his slender front limbs and brutal claws reaching for him.

Charles’ mind calmed with patience and with time, the strength of his own will and his bond with Erik helping to dull the edges of his lunar madness and finally, despite his wariness, one night they did not put Charles into his cage.

There were somethings that couldn’t be helped no matter how strong Charles’ mind was. He developed an acute taste for blood that refused to wane whenever the moon was full and would hunt the woods and fields for moose and deer, but always returned to Erik just before the sun rose.

In his boldness he hunted further and further from home and met others cursed like himself roaming together while haunting the woodlands at the foot of the mountains, their fervor and their bloodlust not tempered the way his was. Their proclivities far more gruesome.

He did not return to the mountain forests and in the spring thaw of the following year, Erik returned from a trip delivering his newly forged iron wares to tell Charles that there had been disappearances in the towns on the far side of the mountains. People who had set out on the mountain pass to peddle their wares that never reached their destinations and never returned.

Charles had shivered, turning his eyes on the twisting, writhing straw Erik tossed into their fire and knew with certainty that anyone foolish enough to travel the mountain pass during the full moon would be gobbled up whole.

He feared that he could do the same, after all the same curse was laid on him. Erik had come to him, pressing his warmth all down Charles’ side, whispering against his temple, his cheek, his jaw, that he could not, the urge may rise up from time to time but he was stronger. Far stronger. Erik used his fingers to turn Charles’ face toward him and spent what remained of the night working to make Charles abandon his morbid thinking. Making him gasp and moan until there were no coherent thoughts left inside his head.

***

Close to dawn Charles lays his head down in Erik’s lap and waits for the sun to strip him of his wolfish form. The last day of the cycle leaving him restless and agitated but far more level headed than he was the previous night. Erik pats the top of his head, humming to himself absently and Charles closes his eyes, listening.

When the sun finally rises and gives Charles back to himself, leaving him free for the next blessed twenty nine days he stretches his pale arms out in front of himself, wriggling his fingers in the air, his head still pillowed on Erik’s leg. Charles grins up at him as Erik pushes the stray lock of Charles’ hair that refuses to stay in place back out of his eyes and urges Charles to his feet so they can go inside.

Later with the morning sun unspooling across their rumpled bed Charles spends the remainder of his energy against Erik’s warm and willing flesh, moving deep inside him to make him groan. Charles’ teeth baring once more at the sound, growling feverishly as he nips at Erik’s heated skin.

“You smell like dirt,” Erik comments lazily against his shoulder afterwards.

Charles snorts in reply, pulling Erik closer, nuzzling into his sweaty hair. He’s loose and relaxed now, pliant and soft. Arching into Erik’s touch as his fingertips drag down Charles’ spine. The morning light dancing over his freckled shoulders and warming his skin, Erik’s fingers digging into him in exactly the right way as he closes his eyes, yawns and drifts into sleep that’s dreamless and calm.

 

 

 


End file.
